“With this budget, we have an opportunity to invest in our children, our families and our neighborhoods to build the city we all deserve," Mayor Levar Stoney said Wednesday. Earlier in the week, he visited Martin Luther King Jr. Preschool. (Photo by Sarah King)
Hours before the public debut of his proposed biennial budget, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney posted a photo of the small turtle figure he keeps on his desk.
“Watch the turtle. He only moves forward by sticking his neck out,” reads the caption, a quote by Louis V. Gerstner Jr. — something Stoney seemed to embrace ahead of his looming fiscal year 2020 budget presentation that afternoon.
Stoney’s budget proposal received mixed responses from City Council members after he announced a proposed 9-cent real estate tax hike and what would be the city’s first cigarette tax. A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for Monday, April 22, at 6 p.m. in council chambers.
The budget, presented Wednesday to a packed audience in the second-floor chambers at City Hall, would provide an $18.5 million increase to fund the Richmond Public Schools strategic plan, Dreams4RPS, by raising the city’s real estate tax to $1.29 — equivalent to the pre-recession 2006 rate — and levy a 50-cent tax per pack of cigarettes in the city, which is currently the only major city in the state to not tax the products.
The increases would yield new revenues of $21.1 million and $3 million, respectively, Stoney said in his presentation. Richmond currently has the highest real estate tax rate among its neighboring localities, all of which tax less than $1 per $100 of assessed value.
“This budget marks a new beginning,” Stoney said at the 3 p.m. presentation. “With this budget, we have an opportunity to invest in our children, our families and our neighborhoods to build the city we all deserve.”
Council members were not permitted questions and did not offer commentary during the public presentation — something Council President and 7th District representative Cynthia Newbille was adamant about.
“We reserve our work sessions for the deep dives in these budgets,” Newbille said, shortly after Stoney took his seat and 8th District Councilwoman Reva Trammell began asking pointed questions directed at the mayor.
“How many council members own a home in the city, pay these high prices?” a visibly heated Trammell continued after the meeting, as audience members began filing out of chambers.
When pressed on whether it was Trammell’s position that Stoney should not be able to propose a real estate tax hike because he does not own property in the city, she interjected with, “You’re damn right.”
Newbille said the first budget work session would take place Monday.
Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras greets Stoney as he returns to his seat after the public budget presentation. (Photo by Sarah King)
“We are thrilled,” Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras said of Stoney's proposal. “This is a fantastic budget; we really appreciate the mayor's bold and courageous leadership — as he said, it's not an easy thing to do, but it is the right thing to do for our kids.”
With regard to public outcry after the School Board voted to pass a budget that had not been publicly made available at the time of the vote last week, Kamras insisted he looks forward to the remainder of the budgeting process.
“As I've said many times before, we welcome very robust debate about our budget and look forward to that over the coming months,” he said.
In justifying the tax increases, Stoney explained that despite a projected $12 million increase in revenue for the upcoming fiscal year, the revenue barely covers an estimated $10 million increase in non-discretionary city expenses, leaving little remaining for infrastructure maintenance and long-neglected needs in the city after the 2008 recession.
Prefacing the economic crisis, the city cut taxes in 2006 and 2007, bringing the real estate tax from $1.29 to $1.20 per $100 of assessed value; in 2004, the tax was levied at $1.38; in 1989, the rate was $1.53.
Second District Councilwoman Kim Gray, a former member of the Richmond School Board, was less pleased with the proposed tax increases.
“It’s really hard to say 'Let them eat cake' when you don't really know what's happening on the ground — there's people whose utilities are being shut off,” Gray said. “We pay the highest utility rates, probably in the nation; there are comparative analysis and audit reports that show we're out of line with our spending in several departments, nobody's looked at fixing that.”
Gray said she was also unhappy about the lack of discussion surrounding where the School Board could cut expenses.
“There's no discussion about school consolidations when we've lost 800 students — which is the equivalent of an entire middle school — but I haven't heard anyone say we're going to cut back on the school side,” Gray said. “As a matter of fact, if you look at the [schools] budget, the administrative line has grown by more than $1 million — it's not teacher salaries, it's administrative — and there's a lot of cronyism happening, a lot of people I don't believe to be fully qualified in the school district who are making way out of line salaries that are much higher than any of our counterparts in the state.”
Fourth District Councilwoman Kristen Larson, another former School Board member, seemed to fall somewhere in the middle.
“I think that's a pretty large [real estate] tax increase — I definitely have a lot of heartburn about putting that kind of tax increase on our residents,” Larson said after the presentation. “I think the priorities the mayor laid out there are solid — our infrastructure, our roads are way behind in maintenance and I experience it personally myself every day and it's so frustrating — however, we need to make sure that we're being efficient with the funds we have before we go out and tax our residents some more.”
Larson noted the tax hike would follow real estate assessments that averaged an overall 7.6 percent increase across the city last year — the largest jump in a decade — with some areas of the city experiencing double-digit hikes in assessed values, and thus incurring larger tax bills without any tax-rate increase.
“Our assessments have increased a lot over the last two years, and they were probably sort of behind,” she explained, noting, “This is prior to me being on City Council — I'm beginning my third year — we had an interim assessor, and when we hired a permanent assessor, he came in and was a little more aggressive.”
Assessments are typically an indicator of the market value and trends in real estate, she said.
“When you look at the breakdown of different areas of our city and the assessments, it's really interesting — some have had double-digit percentage increases ... some of these up-and-coming neighborhoods, Manchester is another one, those places have gone bananas.”
The proposed $18.5 million increase for schools includes a local match to state legislation passed this session funding pay increases for teachers, an announcement that generated big applause from the gallery when Stoney announced the proposal.
The allocation would exceed the additional $18 million requested by Kamras and the School Board, which recently voted to pass a budget that had not been made public at the time of the vote. The city’s Capital Improvement Program budget also fully funds eligible RPS maintenance needs of $19 million.
The funds would go toward the priorities established in the RPS strategic plan, and include ensuring all third grade students are at or exceeding reading level, as well as increasing the number of school nurses and counselors and restructuring the school system’s math and English curricula — but with strings attached.
Stoney announced in tandem a new “scorecard” initiative to be carried out by the Education Compact team he convened of city and schools representatives.
“We will insist on accountability and commitment by the School Board to produce an annual RPS scorecard tracking progress and performance, as well as a date certain to deliver their city school rezoning plan,” Stoney said. “No excuses.”
Other priority items in the proposed budget include:
- $16.2 million for road and sidewalk improvements
- $2.9 million dedicated to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund
- $965,000 to the GRTC for expanded routes and service
- $485,000 for the city’s recently launched Eviction Diversion Program
- A raise in starting salaries for police officers to $43,000
- Continuation of planned step pay increases for police and firefighters
- A 3 percent cost of living raise for city employees, the first of its kind in 15 years.
The Capital Improvement Program budget of $96.9 million for fiscal year 2020, which begins July 1, makes a number of investments in city infrastructure, including:
- $10 million to restore bridges and thoroughfares and for pedestrian traffic safety initiatives that reduce accidents and save lives through the Vision Zero program
- Renovations to Powhatan and Southside community centers, and upgrades to the Blackwell Playground and Chimborazo Park to enhance programming for youth and senior citizens
- Full funding for RPS maintenance needs.
“I know what I’m proposing with this budget is not the easy thing to do, but ladies and gentlemen, it’s the right thing to do,” Stoney said of the fully balanced $758 million budget he announced Wednesday. “We cannot allow these dreams to be deferred or denied any longer.”
